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mmm 


DELIVHBED  AT  THE 


Msm  OF  lOHTH  Caroli, 


ms^&SM  ©a,  assJSs 


By  rev.  WILLIAM  HOOPER 


)  1 


Professor  of  Ancient  Languages. 


WILMINGTON,  N.  C: 

Messenger  Steam  Job  Presses. 

1890. 


%3f^^m 


A  SERMON 

,  DELIVERED  AT  THE 

ifniyet^^ity  of  ^ortl}  Cki^oliiik, 

MARCH  31,  1833. 

BY  REV.  WILLIAM  HOOPER, 

Professor  of  Ancient  Languages, 


THE    FORCE    OF    HABIT.* 

Jehemiah  XIII,  23 — Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spsts  ? 
Then  may  ye  also  do  good  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil. 

I  shall  take  occasion  from  these  striking  words  of  Scripture  to  address 
you,  my  hearers,  on  The  Force  of  Habit.  Vou  all  know  that  a  habit 
is  formed  by  the  repetition  of  any  act,  until,  by  frequency  and  long 
familiarity,  it  beconis  easy  and  natural.  Hence  it  has  grown  into  a 
proverb  that  "habit  is  a  second  nature."  Uf  how  much  moment  then 
must  it  be,  to  mark  with  especial  vigilance,  and  to  guard  with  especial 
care,  that  season  of  life,  when  the  habits  begin  to  be  formed,  and  the 
character  is  beginning  to  assume  the  shape  which  it  will  carry  through 
the  whole  of  our  earthly  sojourn,  and  which  will  affect  our  destiny  for 
eternity  !     It  is  because  that  most  of  my  audience  are  at  this  critical 

*This  discourse  was  delivered  to  the  Students  of  the  University  of 
North  Carolina,  March  31st,  1833,  by  William  Hooper,  then  Professor  of 
Ancient  Languages  of  the  University,  and  by  them  solicited  for  publica- 
tion. We  have  been  requested  to  re-publish  the  discourse,  as  it  is  one 
of  great  worth  and  as  thete  are  t'ew  copies  of  the  former  edition  in  exis- 
tence. In  complying  with  the  request  to  allow  its  publication.  Dr.  H. 
addressed  to  them  the  following  note  : 

Votifig  Centlemen  of  the  University: — I  dedic  ate  this  Discourse  to  your 
service.  At  your  request  I  have  submitted  it  to  the  press.  As  a  literary 
effort  I  am  sensible  it  presents  no  claims  to  such  partiality  ;  but  as  con- 
taining important  truths,  worthy  of  being  often  held  up  before  your 
minds  and  reflected  upon  again  and  again,  1  have  thought  it  might  not 
be  entirely  undeserving  to  pass  into  a  form  that  should  give  it  a  chance 
of  more  durable  utility  than  mere  evanescent  utterance  can  ever  effect, 


period  of  their  lives,  that  I  think  no  subject  on  which  I  could  possibly 
address  them,  is  more  appropriate  to  their  condition  ;  no  one,  which 
could  more  justly  claim  their  deep  and  serious  reflection.  It  is  not 
merely  to  fulfill  a  customary  round  of  dut\  ;  it  is  merely  to  occupy  you 
the  usual  time  with  the  expected  pulpit  performance,  and  then  let  you 
go  away,  our  minds  being  well  satisfied  if  the  end  be  gained  of  having 
kept  up  for  another  Sabbath  the  decent  observance  of  our  religion,  and 
of  having  thrown  out  some  thoughts  acceptable  to  your  present  hearing. 
No,  my  friends,  we  aim  at  scnnething  more  than  this  barren  discharge 
of  a  periodical  duty,  or  this  half  hour's  occupation  of  your  minds.  It  is 
with  the  cherished  hope  and  fervent  prayer  that  something  may  be 
dropped  at  this  time,  which  may  occur  to  your  meditations  at  many  a 
future  day,  and  have  some  operation  in  regulating  those  habits  which 
are  now  fixing  themselves  upon  30U,  that  I  have  chosen  the  words  of 
the  text,  as  the  subject  of  my  present  address.  "Can  the  Ethiopian 
change  his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots?"  exclaims  God  by  the  mouth  of 
the  prophet  to  his  people,  now  become  obstinate  and  inveterate  in  their 
wickedness:  "Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots? 
Then  may  ye  also  do  good,  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil."  Here  the 
doctrine  is  taught  that  when  habits  of  evil  are  formed,  they  cleave  to  us 
with  as  close  and  inseparable  a  tenacity  as  the  complextion  of  our  skin; 
and  that  you  might  as  well  expect  the  African,  by  an  act  of  his  will,  to 
become  white,  or  the  leopard  to  change  his  spotty  hide,  as  to  expect 
those  addicted  to  sinful  courses  to  renounce  them,  and  to  become  good. 
The  comparison  is  certainly  a  most  striking  and  forcible  one,  and  con- 
veys little  less  than  the  absolute  impossibility  and  hopelessness  of  a 
recovery  from  vicious  habits.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say,  that  by 
likening  moral  reformation  to  two  natural  impossibilities,  the  divine 
word  means  to  pronounce  moral  reformation  to  be  utterly  imposible. 
But  this  I  may  safely  say,  that  by  the  comparison,  God  evidently  intends 
to  teach  us  that  a  return  from  evil  habits  is  extremely  difficult  and  im- 
probable, and  would  be  almost  as  miraculous  a  de[)arture  from  the  usual 
laws  of  the  moral  world,  as  the  voluntary   assumption  oi  a  new  skin  by 


God  grant  that  the  considerations  here  urged  upon  you,  may  frequently 
recur  to  you  in  the. hour  of  need.  I  have  labored  many  years  in  endea- 
voring to  communicate  classical  learing  to  the  youth  of  North  Carolina; 
but  all  that  I  have  done  in  that  way  affords  me  less  comfort  in  the  retro- 
spect, than  the  possibility  that  1  may  have  said  in  the  sacred  desk,  has 
had  a  share  in  forming  a  youthful  heart  to  virtue,  and  leading  it  to  seek 
acquaintance  with  God.  If  in  the  course  oi'  my  connection  with  the 
young  men  of  this  State,  I  have  met  with  any  success  of  this  kind,  I  must 
esteem  it  as  my  most  precious  earthly  reward,  and  the  most  valuable 
fame  I  could  inherit. 


the  Ethiopian  or  the  leopard,  would  be  from  the  laws  of  the  physical 
world.  So  our  Saviour  declared  the  salvation  of  a  rich  man  to  be  more 
difficult  than  the  passaije  of  a  camel  through  a  needle's  eye — a  natural 
imposibility;  l)ut  at  tlie  same  time  brought  the  case  within  the  reach  of 
divine  omnipott^nce  and  mercy,  saying  that  "with  men  such  a  thing  was 
impossible,  but  not  with  God.  Most  certain  is  it,  then,  that  the  maker 
of  our  frame  here  calls  upon  us  to  mark  and  take  notice  of  an  important 
and  most  inflexible  law  of  our  moral  constitution,  to-wit:  that  what  we 

ARE    MADF   P.V   LONG   HABIT    I'HAT   WK     SHALL    CONTINTE  TO   BE    THROUGH 

LIFE.  I  say  further  that  our  observation  of  human  nature  abundantly 
confirms  the  doctrine,  and  proves  that  men  are  carried  onward  by  old 
habits  with  a  certainty  and  fatality  almost  as  rigid  as  that  which  propels 
the  rivers  onward  to  the  ocean.  Let  none  complain  of  this  law  of  our 
nature.  Let  none  say,  whv  was  man  made  so  much  the  creature  and 
slave  of  habit,  that  when  once  entagled,  he  loses  all  power  to  extricate 
himself.  We  might  as  well  quarrel  with  the  law  of  gravitation  which 
destroys  the  life  of  a  man  who  flings  himself  from  the  top  of  a  precipice- 
The  same  law  of  physical  nature  which  makes  the  fall  from  a  precipice 
fatal,  and  which  brings  down  heavy  bodies  with  destructive  force  upon 
thousands  of  human  beings,  that  same  law  holds  the  earth  in  its  orbit, 
binds  all  its  millions  of  inhabitants  to  their  homes  upon  its  surface,  makes 
the  showers  descend  to  gladden  the  fields,  and  rolls  the  waters,  that 
would  otherwise  stagnate  and  poison  us,  with  healthful  currents  to  their 
mighty  reservoir. 

Nor  is  this  mora/  law,  whose  stubborn  strength  is  so  much  complained 
of,  less  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  the  author  of  nature  than  the  other,  nor 
is  it  less  remarkable  for  its  salutary  than  for  its  pernicious  effects.  It  is 
by  habit  that  all  the  most  necessary  acts  of  life  are  rendered  easy  and 
pleasant.  By  habit  we  learn  to  walk,  to  speak,  to  read  and  write,  to  per- 
form all  manual  operations  with  facility  and  despatch.  By  the  power  of 
habit  are  all  those  acts  carried  on  which  minister  to  the  wants  and  con_ 
venience  of  life.  By  the  power  of  habit  is  the  printer  enabled  to  combine 
his  types  into  words  with  a  rapidity  astonishing  to  the  eye  and  surpass- 
ing all  previous  belief,  and  to  prepare  for  us  those  thousands  of  volumes 
which  are  continually  fibing  the  world  with  intelligence  and  delight. 

This  same  principle  of  our  constitution  is  no  less  subservient  to  the 
passive,  than  to  the  active  powers  of  man.  It  enables  us  to  endure  with 
ease,  hardships  that  were  at  first  intolerable.  It  enables  man  to  breathe 
with  impunity  the  pestiferous  atmosphere  of  crowded  manufactories,  to 
reside  in  every  climate,  and  after  spending  half  his  life  among  northern 
snows  to  go  and  spend  the  remainder  in  the  torrid  zone. 


Now  let  us  mark  the  inrtuence  of  this  powerful  law  of  nature  upon  our 
moral  conduct.  We  find  from  personal  experience,  and  we  know  from 
observations  on  our  fellow-men,  that  our  natural  appetites  acquire  strength 
from  every  indulgence;  that  at  first  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  restrain 
them  within  lawful  barriers;  but  that  habits  of  excess  render  them  impe" 
rious  and  uncontrollable,  so  that  we  are  dragged  on  after  them  as  by  an 
invisible  chain  whose  strength  bids  defiance  to  all  our  resistance.  This 
is  the  case  with  respect  to  our  natural  appetites.  And  it  holds  equally 
in  relation  to  our  artiricial  appetites.  A  man  may  contract  such  an 
appetite  for  tobacco,  opium,  or  ardent  spirits, as  to  crave  these  naturally 
distasteful  articles  with  a  rage  of  desire  equal  to  natural  hunger  and 
thirst.  It  is  mercifully  provided,  however,  by  the  constitution  of  our 
nature,  that  habit  may  be  made  as  powerful  an  auxiliary  to  virtue  as  to 
vice.  By  means  of  it  not  only  sensual  appetites  and  evil  passions  become 
dominant  and  irre*stible,  but  the  numerous  train  of  virtues,  to  which  our 
nature  is  less  inclined,  and  the  incipient  practice  of  which  recjuires  so 
much  heroic  resolution  and  self-denial,  all  these  feel  the  benign  forge  of 
habit  and  become,  in  time,  not  only  easier  of  performance  but  as  fixed  and 
certain  in  their  operation  on  our  conduct*  as  are  any  of  our  natural 
instincts.     We  are  then  creatures  of  habit.     Whatever  becomes  habitual 

*The  reader  will  thank  me  for  enriching  my  page  with  the  following 
profound  observations:  "F^xperience,"' says  Mr.  Stewart,  "diminishes  the 
influence  of  passive  impressions  on  the  mind,  but  strengthens  our  acliv-e 
principles.  A  course  of  debauchery  deadens  the  sense  of  pleasure,  but 
increases  the  desirr  of  gratification.  An  in  moderate  use  of  strong 
liquors  destroys  the  sensibility  of  the  palate,  but  strengthens  the  habit 
of  intemperance.  The  enjoyments  we  derive  from  any  favorite  pursuit 
gradually  decay  as  we  advance  iii  years,  and  yet  we  continue  to  prosecute 
our  favorite  pursuits  with  increasing  steadiness  and  vigcr.  On  these 
two  laws  of  our  nature  is  founded  our  capacity  of  moral  improvement.  In 
proportion  as  we  are  accustomed  to  obey  our  sense  of  duty  the  infiuence 
of  the  temptations  to  vice  is  diminished,  while  at  the  same  time  our  habit 
of  virtuous  conduct  is  confirmed.  It  is  thus  that  the  character  of  the 
beneficent  man  is  formed I  he  passive  impressions  which  he  felt  orig- 
inally, and  which  counteracted  his  sense  of  duty,  have  lost  their  influ- 
ence, and  a  habit  of  beneficence  is  become  a  part  of  his  nature.... We 
might  naturally  be  led  to  suspect  that  the  young  and  unpractised  would 
be  more  disposed  to  perform  beneficent  actions  than  those  who  are 
advanced  in  life,  and  who  have  been  familiar  with  scenes  of  misery. 
And,  in  truth,  the  fact  would  be  so  were  it  not  that  the  effect  of  custom 
on  this  passive  impression  is  counteracted  by  its  effects  on  others;  and 
above  all  by  its  influence  in  strengthening  the  active  habits  of  benefi- 
cence. An  old  and  experienced  physician  is  less  affected  by  the  sight  of 
bodily  pain  than  a  younger  practitioner;  but  he  has  acquired  a  more  con- 
firmed habit  of  assisting  the  sick  and  helpless,  and  would  offer  greater 
violence  to  his  nature  if  he  should  withhold  from  them  any  relief  that  he 
has  in  his  power  to  bestow.  In  this  case  we  see  a  beautiful  provision 
made  for  our  moral   improvement,  as  the  effects  of  experierice  on  one 


becomes  easy,  whether  it  be  virtue  or  vice.  Whenever  we  have  formed  a 
habit  we  seem  to  act  almost  mechanically  in  obedience  to  the  habit  with- 
out an  etiort  of  the  will.  Indeed,  so  prone  are  we  to  repeat  habitual  ac- 
tions, and  so  little  reflection  and  virtuous  resolutions  are  we  conscious  of 
in  obeying  good  habits,  that  it  seems  as  if  tiiey  were  hardly  entitled  to  a 
moral  character;  so  nearly  do  thev  approach  to  being  inxdiuntary,  like  the 
play  of  our  lungs  and  the  beating  of  our  heart.  The  time  and  sphere,  then, 
for  virtuous  choice  and  virtuous  determination  is  in  the  outside  of  life  It 
consists  in  oft  repeating  those  acts  which  lead  to  good  and  valuable  habits, 
and  in  denying,  again  and  again,  as  often  as  they  solicit  us,  those  acts 
which  lead  to  \  icious  hal.iits.  Here,  then,  my  young  friends,  take  your 
stand.  Resist  the  beginnings  of  evil;  yes,  the  beginnings;  That  is  the 
important  juncture.  Yield  to  the  beginnings  of  evil  and  you  are  un- 
done.* Your  ruin  can  be  predicted  with  almost  as  much  certainty  as 
that  of  the  bark  which  is  floating  towards  the  cataract  of  Niagara.  Are 
you  now  free,  unfettered  by  the  toils  of  vice  ?  Give  not  up,  I  beseech 
you,  that  glorious,  that  blessed  freedom.  Let  not  the  persuasion  of  the 
miserable  victims  of  vice  involve  you  in  their  degradation.  What ! 
Would  you  let  a  slave  persuade  you  for  the  sake  of  companionship,  to 
share  his  chains  and  his  stripes  .''     Would   you  let  a  man,    who  was  fool 


part  of  our  nature  are  made  to  counteract  its   effects  on  another." — Phi- 
losophy of  the  Mind,  vol.  /,  p.  jg6. 

These  remarks  of  Stewart  were  suggested  by  the  following  passage  in 
Butler's  Analogy:  "Fcom  these  two  observations  together,  that  practi- 
cal habits  are  formed  and  strengthened  by  repeated  acts;  and  that  pas- 
sive impressions  grou  weaker  by  being  repeated  upon  us,  it  must  follow 
that  active  habits  mav  be  gradually  forming  and  strengthening  by  a 
course  of  acting  upon  such  and  such  motives  and  excitements,  whilst 
these  motives  and  e.xcitements  themselves  are,  by  propurtionable 
degrees,  growing  less  sensible,  i.e.,  are  continually  Jess  and  less  sensibly 
felt,  even  as  the  active  habits  strengthen.  And  experience  confirms 
this;  for  active  principles  at  the  very  time  they  are  less  lively  in  percep- 
tion than  the\-  were  are  found  to  be,  somehow,  wrought  more  thoroughly 
into  the  temper  and  character,  and  become  more  efi'ectual  in  influencing 
our  practice.  Let  a  man  set  himself  to  attend  to,  inquire  out  and  relieve 
distressed  persons,  and  he  can  not  but  grow  less  and  less  sensibly 
affected  with  the  variouo>  miseries  of  life  with  which  he  must  become 
acquainted;  when  yet,  at  the  same  time,  benevolence,  considered  not  as 
a  passion  but  as  a  practical  principal  of  action,  will  strengthen,  ^nd 
whilst  he  passively  compassionates  the  distressed  less  he  will  acquire  a 
greater  aptitude  actively  to  assist  and  befriend  them,"  etc. 

These  remarks  of  both  these  profound   and   sagacious   writers  I  have 
been  very  willing  to  transfer  to  this  place,  at  once  to  give  a  more  dura- 
ble value  to  this  pamphlet  than  it  would  otherwise  possess,  and  to  tempt 
my  young  friends  to  dive  for  other  pearls  in  the  same  deeps. 
fPrincipiis  obsta;  sero  medicina  paratur, 
>  Cum  mala  per  longas  invaluere  moras. — Ovid.     ■ 


and  madman  enough  to  set  fire  to  his  own  house,  persuade  you  to  set 
fire  to  yours  also,  that  you  might  both  be  in  the  same  condition  ?  How 
would  you  feel  towards  the  man,  who  should  seize  your  hand,  run  with 
you  to  the  veri;e  ot  a  precipice,  and  then  throwing  himself  over  endeavor 
to  pull  you  along  with  him  ?  Would  you  not  wrench  your  hand  from 
his  detested  grasp  and  recoil  from  him  with  horor  and  indignation  ? 
Yet  you  can  smile  with  complacency  upon  the  companion,  who,  himself 
the  slave  of  vice,  would  have  you  to  forsake  the  paths  of  innocence,  and 
join  him  in  his  wicked  courses,  merely  that  he  may  have  countenance 
and  society  in  vice  !  ^'ou  can  put  yourself  under  the  guidance  and 
conduct  of  such  a  veteran  in  proHij/acy.  if  he  will  but  take  hold  of  your 
arm,  say  "come  along,"  and  laugh  at  vour  timorous  scruples  !  Oh  there 
are  no  words  adequate  to  express  the  abhorence  due  to  those,  who,  not 
satisfied  with  being  ruined  themselves,  practice  their  accursed  arts  in 
seducing  young  and  thoughtless  minds  from  the  paths  of  rectitude,  and 
glory  in  the  propagation  of  vice.  If  those  who  turn  many  to  righteous- 
ness shall  receive  an  extraordinary  reward,  surely 

There  is  some  chosen  curse 

Some  hidden  thunder  in  the  stores  of  heav'n. 
Red  with  uncommon  wrath,  to  blast  the  man — 

that  finds  an  alleviation  to  his  own  misery  in  undoing  others,  or  can  look 
around  with  a  devi'ish  joy  at  the  desolation  he  has  spared.  Yet  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  this  enormity  is  often  committed  within  Collegiate  walls, 
erected  for  the  nursery  and  culture  of  all  noble  and  generous  sentiments. 
Yes;  we  are  obliged  to  believe  that  here,  even  in  this  very  place,  are 
simplehearted.  unsuspecting,  moral  yoimg  men,  year  after  year,  grad- 
ually contaminated  by  those  who  are  older  than  themselves,  and  who 
instead  of  being  their  guides  to  virtue,  use  the  influence  of  superior  age 
to  decoy  them  into  sin.  Ye  unfeeling  seducers  of  youthful  innocence! 
Is  It  not  enough  that  you  feel  yourselves  the  miseries  of  remorse?  Have 
you  so  much  malignity  within  you.  as  to  find  a  solace  to  your  pains  in 
making  others  as  wretched  as  yourselves?  Is  it  not  sufficient  to  stab  the 
peace  and  wreck  the  hopes  of  your  own  parents,  must  yon  also  stab  the 
peace  and  wreck  the  hopes  of  othe:r  parents?  Ah,  if  you  have  any  pity 
or  generosity  left  in  your  souls,  if  you  would  not,  like  satan,  enter  para- 
dise, and  blast  out  of  sheer  envy,  the  purity  and  hapiness  you  cannot 
partake,  leave  uncorrupted  those  who  yet  walk  in  their  uprightness;  who 
promise  to  be  the  joy  of  their  friends,  and  the  hope  of  their  country.  If 
you  must  have  companions  of  your  guilty  pleasures,  take  those  who  are 
already  corrupted.     Let  those  who  take   hands,  and  rush  together  into 

the  vortex,  and  find  a  mad  delight  in  riding  round  aind  round  in  the  ine- 


briate  whirl  of  waters,  which  are  just  yawning  to  engulf  them,  let  these, 
I  say,  be  ail  equally  ruined,  equally  bereft  of  conscience,  equally  lost 
to  hope,  with  scowling  despair  written  on  their  foreheads.  Methinks  it 
ought  to  melt  with  sorrrow  the  heart  of  a  young  man,  not  lost  to  all  sen- 
sations of  humanity,  to  lead  astray  another  younger  than  himself. 
Should  we  not  suppose  that  honor  and  every  kindly  feeling  of  the  soul 
would  rise  up  in  his  bosom  in  behalf  of  yet  untarnished  virtue,  and  in- 
duce him  to  thrust  back  from  his  company,  the  young  proselyte  who 
was  ready  to  yield  himself  up  to  his  ruinous  example?  How  much  more 
worthy  would  it  be  of  every  generous  enuotion,  for  those  who  have  con- 
tracted any  unhappy  propensity,  when  they  see  others  beginning  to  go 
the  same  way,  rather  to  put  them  back,  and  say:  "as  for  ourselves  we 
cannot  help  indulgmg  in  these  things,  but  you  who  are  yet  safe,  and  not 
fatally  bent  towards  these  destructive  courses,  you  we  advise  to  keep 
yourselves  far  from  them."  This  is  no  more  than  that  common  charity 
which  we  all  show  to  each  other,  when  we  have  unfortunately  taken  a 
disease.  We  tell  how  we  contrated  it,  and  caution  others  against  the 
same  impudence. 

There  are  various  evil  habits  to  which  your  circumstances  expose  you, 
some  of  which  I  will  mention,  and  leave  it  to  your  good  sense  and  to 
your  consciences  to  apply  the  same  reasoning  and  expostulations  against 
those  w  hich  1  may  not  mention,  but  which  you  know  threaten  to  ensare 
you.  With  respect  to  them  all  I  beg  you  to  carry  along  with  you,  ever 
fresh  in  your  memory  this  admonition,  that  "habit  is  a  second  nature," 
and  that  you  may  as  soon  expect  any  animal  to  act  in  a  manner  contrary 
to  its  nature,  the  lion  to  eat  straw  like  the  ox,  and  the  wolf  and  the  lamb 
to  lie  down  in  amity  together,  as  for  those  to  learn  to  do  good  who  have 
been  long  accustomed  to  do  evil.  Beware,  then,  how  you  fall  into  the 
habit  of  what  is  wrong,  and  beware  of  the  rtrst  act,  lest  that  be  the 
foundation  of  a  habit — lest  that  give  the  soid  an  impulse  from  u  hich  it 
never,  never  shall  recover.  If  you  are  enticed  by  your  own  desires  or 
by  the  arts  of  others,  resist,  as  you  would  resist  an  attack  upon  your 
life',  fly  from  the  temptation — fight  against  this  insidious  passion,  tram- 
ple it  under  ybur  feet  and  grind  it  to  powder.  When  you  are  sailing  by 
the  the  rocks  of  the  Sirens,  trust  not  your  ears  to  the  soul-subduing 
song  ;  but  like  t^^lysses  and  his  crew,  stop  fast  your  ears  and  let  yourself 
be  bound  to  the  mast  until  you  have  past  the  danger.  Or  to  quote  you 
a  better  example,  like  the  young  and  virtuous  Joseph,  snatch  yourself 
forcibly  away  and  flee  far  from  the  tempter  and  the  temptation.  Listen 
to  the  affectionate  counsel  of  Solomon,  the  wisest  of  men:  "My  son 
attend  to  my  words:     Inclme  thine  ear  unto  my  sayings:     Enter  not 


into  the  path  of  the  wicked  and  go  not  in  the  way  of  evil  men.  Avoid 
it,  pass  not  V>y  it,  turn  Irom  it  and  pass  away.  Hear,  then,  my  son,  and 
be  wise.  He  not  among  wine  bibbers,  among  riotous  eaters  of  flesh  ; 
for  tlie  drunkard  and  glutton  shall  come  to  poverty.  Look  not  then 
upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  its  color  in  the  cup,  at  the 
last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an  adder."  Oh,  how 
exactly  true  have  miserable  thousands  found  this  to  be  to  their  eternal 
cost. 

I  mentioned  that  there  were  some  habits  to  which  your  circumstances 
render  you  peculiarly  obnoxious,  and  aijainst  which,  therefore,  every  one 
among  you  ought  to  case  himself  in  triple  armor.  Here  1  cannot  do  bet- 
ter than  copy  a  passage  from  Dr.  Haley's  Moral  Philosophy,  a  book  which 
along  with  some  doctrines  of  dangerous  tendency,  contains  many  valu- 
able rules  for  the  conduct  of  life.  'Man,"  says  this  celebrated  author, 
"is  a  bundle  of  habits.  There  are  habits  not  only  of  drinking;  swear- 
ing and  lying,  and  of  some  other  things  which  are  commonly  acknowl- 
edged to  be  habits,  but  of  every  modification  of  action,  speech  and 
thought.  There  are  habits  of  attention;  vigilance,  advertency,  of  a 
prompt  obedience  to  the  judgment  occurring,  or  of  yielding  to  the  first 
impulse  of  the  passion,  of  extending  our  views  to  the  future,  or  of  rest- 
ing upon  the  present,  of  indolence  and  dilatoriness,  of  vanity,  of  fretful- 

ness,  suspicion,  captionsness, of  covetousness,    of  overreaching 

intriguing  projecting.  In  a  word,  there  is  not  a  quantity  or  function  either 
of  body  or  mind,  which  does  not  feel  the  influence  of  this  great  law  of  ani- 
mated nature.  ....  A  rule  of  life  of  considerable  importance  is,  that  many 
things  ought  to  be  done  and  abstained  from  solely  for  the  sake  of  habit- 
We  will  explain  ourselves  by  an  example:  A  man  has  been  brought  up 
from  infancy  with  a  dread  of  lying.  An  occasion  presents  itself,  where 
at  the  expense  of  a  little  veracity,  he  may  divert  his  company,  set  off  his 
own  wit  with  advantage,  attract  the  notice  and  engage  the  partiality  of 
all  around  him.  This  is  not  a  small  temptation.  And  when  he  looks  a^ 
the  other  side  of  the  question  he  sees  no  mischief  that  can  ensue  from 
this  liberty,  no  slander  of  any  man's  reputation,  no  prejudice  likely  to 
arise  to  any  man's  interest.  Were  there  nothing  further  to  be  consid- 
ered, it  would  be  dificult  to  show  why  a  man  under  such  circumstances 
might  not  indulge  his  humor.  But  when  he  reflects  that  his  scruples 
about  lying  have  hitherto  preserved  him  free  from  this  vice;  that  occa- 
sions like  the  present  will  return,  where  the  inducement  will  be  equally 
strong  but  the  indulgence  much  less  innocent,  that  his  scuples  will  wear 
away  by  a  few  transgressions  and  leave  him  subject  to  one  of  the  mean- 
est and  most  pernicious  of  all  bad  habits — a  habit  of  lying  whenever  i^ 


9 

will  serve  his  turn;  when  all  this.  I  sny,  is  considered,  a  wise  man  will 
forego  the  present,  or  a  much  greater  pleasure,  rather  tiian  lay  the  foun- 
dation of  a  character  so  vicious  and  contemptible." 

I  quote  this  passage,  not  with  entire  approbation,  because  I  think 
whenever  we  are  tempted  to  a  deviation  from  truth,  even  in  trities,  that 
a  regard  for  the  sacredness  of  truth,  an  abhorrence  for  falsehood,  a  rev- 
erence for  conscience  and  a  fear  of  God,  ought  at  unce  to  rebuke  away 
the  plausible  deceit,  independently  of  the  consideration  that  it  will  lay 
the  foundation  for  a  bad  habit.  But  the  reflections  suggested  by  Dr* 
Paley,  may  well  come  in  as  powerful  auxiliaries,  to  back  the  instant  and 
spontaneous  refusal  of  an  honest  mind.  They  are  reflections  too,  which 
might  probably  operate  with  considerable  force  on  many  who  think 
very  lightly  of  occasional  falsehood  in  triHes.  Such  persons  .should 
weigh  well  the  danger  of  tritiing  with  a  tender  conscience — diminishing 
that  awful  veneration  for  truth  which  we  ought  to  cultivate — of  gradually 
breaking  down  the  barrier  in  our  moral  feelings  between  right  and 
wrong,  and  at  length  of  violating  truth  with  as  little  scruple  in  the  most 
important  matters  as  at  tirst  we  did  in  the  smallest.  Let  these  reflections 
1  beseech  you,  have  the  weight  they  ought  to  have  in  checking  that 
levity  with  which  an  excuse  is  fabricated  for  neglect  of  ciuty.  It  is  fash- 
ionable to  think  and  speak  of  such  fabrications  as  not  at  all  criminal  or 
dishonorable — as  quite  pardonable.  "It  is  only  baffling  the  faculty  by 
presenting  an  excuse  which  cannot  refuse — they  cannot  have  the  face  to 
dispute  our  word,  though  we  can  have  the  face  to  make  our  word  unwor- 
thy of  their  confiilence — we  are  not  bound  to  observe  faith  with  the  fac- 
ulty." What  a  shocking  doctrine  is  this,  that  you  should  not  be  obliged 
to  observe  faith  with  any  and  with  every  one!  Is  this  the  casuistry  of 
Colleges?  I  hope  not.  I  hope  that  not  many  among  us  have  adopted 
principles  so  loose.  For,  depend  upon  it,  my  young  friends,  that  the 
person  who  can  consent  to  violate  truth  whenever  it  suits  his  conve- 
nience to  make  up  an  excuse  from  collegiate  duty,  cannot  have  a  very 
delicate  sense  of  moral  obligation  on  the  score  of  truth,  and  it  will  not 
be  surprising  if  he  soon  lose  credit  ftir  verac:ity  with  his  companions.  In 
all  communities  there  will  be  some  who  will  fall  in  with  every  vicious 
habit  that  happens  to  be  fashionable,  and  will  carry  it  Just  as  far  as  they 
dare  carry  it  without  forfeiting  their  character.  They  have  no  fixed 
principles,  no  firm  integrity  of  purpose,  no  independent  rule  of  action, 
no  settled  habit  of  doing  what  is  right  at  once  without  waiting  to  see  if 
public   opinion  will  uot  countenance  an  aberration.     Such   persons    are 


10 

mere  moral  chameleons;*  they  take  their  complexions  from  surrounding 
objects.  Let  them  be  at  Rome,  they  will  be  like  those  at  Rome;  or  if  at 
Botany  Bay,  their  plastic  character  can  easily  be  moulded  into  an  assim- 
ilation with  the  manners  and  morals  of  that  famed  colony  of  convicts. 
Let  it  be  the  fashion  to  swear,  to  drink,  to  seduce,  to  tight  duels,  to  spend 
their  money  in  gaming  and  have  none  to  pay  honest  debts  with,  to  break, 
and  live  in  the  same  stylt  after  their  bankruptcy  as  before,  thtse  obse- 
quious apes  o{  the  modt\  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  give  in  to  follies 
and  vices  that  chance  to  jirex  ail  and  arc  glad  when  the  laxity  (.li  public 
morals  will  prevent  such  practices  from  rendering'  them  infamous.  Now 
these  persons  are  withheld  from  the  worst  actions  only  by  the  fear  of 
disgrace.  They  are  not  ashameil  to  commit  the  acts  themselves,  but 
only  ashamed  of  the  detection  of  them.  If  a  person  has  contracted  such 
principles  in  a  college,  wonder  nt)t  if  in  subsequent  life  you  find  him 
careless  of  veracity. f 

1  might  enter  upon  the  same  course  of  reasoning  with  regard  to  many 
other  bad  habits,  such  as  swearing,  idleness,  encroachment  upon  your 
neighbor's  time,  making  a  joke  of  taking  an  article  of  a  fellow-student's 
property,  (Sec.  These  things  are  done  thoughtlessly,  but  must  injure 
the  delicacy  of  moral  principle;  they  must  gradually  impair  virtuous  sen- 
sibility; or,  as  Mr.  Burke  beautifully  expresses  it,  "that  chastity  of  honor 
which  dreads  a  stain  like  a  wound."  Let  me  advise  you,  whenever 
wrong  practices  prevail  in  college,  not  slavishly  to  fall  in  with  them,  and 
say:  "Why  nothing  is  more  common  among  us;  nothing  is  thought  of 
such  things.''  Rather  oppose  the  weight  of  your  influence  and  example 
against  such  practices,  and  if  you  should  be  singular,  dare  to  be  singular 
in  a  good  cause; 

Rather  stand  up  assured,  with  conscious  pride 
Alone,  than  err  with  millions  on  your  side. 

But  I  pass  over  all  other  habits  as  of  minor  importance,  that  I  may 
occupy  the  remainder  of  my  time  in  speaking  of  one  more  dangerous  and 
fatal  than  all  the  rest.  You  can  not  be  ignorant  that  1  allude  to  the  appe- 
tite for  spirituous  liquors.  That  the  most  powerful  arguments  and 
expostulations  againstthis  propensity  are  much  needed  in  every  college 


*As  the  chameleon  which  is  known 
To  have  no  colors  ©f  his  own; 
But  borrows  from  his  neighbor's  hue. 
His  white  or  black,  his  green  or  blue — Prior. 

fDuring  the  last  war,  I  happened  to  travel,  in  one  of  our  public  con- 
veyances with  a  young  officer  of  the  army.  Having  occasion  to  stop  in 
one  of  the  cities,  I  accompanied  him  into  a  shop  where  he  inquired  the 
price  Qf  8  sword.    He  declined  purchasing  them,  but  told  the  shop- 


11 

is,  unhappily,  too  well  known.  It  is  wonderful  that,  when  the  whole 
country  is  covered  with  monuments  of  ruin  produced  by  intemperance — 
of  intellectual  and  moral  worth,  once  high  in  dignity,  now  abject  and 
prostrate — of  families  once  happy  and  prosperous,  now  helpless,  broken- 
hearted and  struggling  for  subsistence — it  is  wonderful  that  young  men, 
seeing  so  many  of  these  monitory  spectacles  before  them,  will  venture  to 
taste  the  liquid  poison  which  has  spread  around  them  this  desolation. 
Yet,  strange  to  tell,  they  will  rush  upon  the  peril  without  even  the  temp- 
tation of  appetite.  Yes,  many  a  youth,  it  is  to  be  feared,  has  here*  begun 
to  drink  when  he  had  a  positive  dislike  to  the  taste  of  spirits,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  appearing  sociable  and  manly.  But  soon  he  pays  dearly  for 
his  temerity  and  vain-glory.  Soon  the  insidious  passion  fastens  itself  upon 
he  contracts  a  liking  for  stimulating  drink,  which  perhaps  shows  its 
immediate  effects  in  slackening  his  exertions  in  his  class,  creating  an 
aversion  to  labor,  a  distaste  for  his  studies,  and  a  i^ondness  for  idle  com- 
pany. No  wonder  now  at  the  oft-alleged  excuse  of  sickness  for  absence 
from  duty.  For  what  else  can  be  expected  after  such  indulgences  but 
lassitude  and  drowsiness  and  nausea?  No  wonder  if,  presently,  college 
restraints  and  recpiisitions  become  intolerable,  and  an  application  is 
made  to  the  parent,  requesting  that  he  may  be  permitted  to  return  home 
in  the  midst  of  his  collegiate  course.  Then  may  we  predict  his  impend- 
ing ruin  with  mournful  certainty,  and  resign  him  up  with  despair  to  the 
despotism  of  a  habit  which  overleaps  all  the  barriers  that  parents  and 
trustees  and  preceptors  could  throw  in  its  way!  May  I  not  be  speaking 
to  some  now  who  are  conscious  that  this  habit  has  obtained  an  almost 
complete  ascendancy  over  them?  Do  they  not  feel  its  despotism  over 
the  will?     Do  they  not  find  themselves   totally  unable  to  resist  the  crav- 


keeper  he  would  "step  in  to-morrow  and  look  at  them  again,"  when  he 
knew  that  we  were  to  depart  in  a  few  hours!  I  blushed  for  him,  that  a 
soldier,  whose  glory  it  is  to  scorn  whatever  is  false  and  disingenuous, 
should  value  truth  so  little.  Will  you  say  this  was  a  trifle?  Well,  so  was 
the  temptation  a  trifle,  and  1  am  not  sure  that  the  same  man,  upon  the 
occurrence  of  a  great  temptation  with  the  hope  of  concealment,  would 
not  have  lied  in  the  most  important  matter.  Yet  if  a  person  had  offered 
to  doubt  this  man's  word  on  any  occasioii  he  would  have  been  ready  to 
run  him  through  the  body. 

*The  writer  would  not  be  understood  to  intimate  that  the  habits  of  the 
students  whom  he  addressed  were  worse,  or  their  temptations  greater 
than  those  of  members  of  colleges  generally.  He  feels  it  as  due  to  them 
to  say  on  the  contrary,  that  a  Temperance  Society  embracing  a  consid- 
erable number  of  the  students  belongs  to  the  college,  and  that  he 
believes  parents  encounter  no  greater  risk  in  venturing  their  sons  at  this 
than  at  any  otiier  similar  institution.  So  far  as  he  has  had  an  opportu- 
nity of  discovering,  an  appetite  for  drink  is  as  little  indulged  in  this  col- 
lege as  in  any  other. 


12 

ings  of  appetite,  although  they  know  the  danger  of  the  habit  which  is 
growing  upon  them?  They  know  it,  but  alas!  it  is  too  late — the  pleasure 
of  present  gratification  is  all  they  care  for,  and  they  purposely  shut  their 
eyes  to  the  probable  issue  of  these  things.  Hut  otiiers  can  see  it  if  they 
will  not.  Yes;  we  can  calculate  upon  the  premature  ruin  and  early  death 
of  such  a  young  man  with  almost  as  much  confidence  as  if  the  deep,  hol- 
low cough,  the  hectic  Hush  and  the  w  asted  form  marked  him  out  for  the 
victim  of  consumption;  I  say  with  almost  as  much  certainty,  because  the 
very  same  experience  that  teaches  us  the  laws  of  the  natural  world 
teaches  us  the  laws  of  the  moral  world.  The  very  same  observation 
that  makes  us  know  the  cough,  the  hectic  flush,  the  wasted  form,  the 
hemorrhage  from  the  lungs,  to  be  alarming  prognostics  of  dissolution, 
enables  us  also  to  know  that  the  morning  dram,  the  evening  carousal, 
the  secreted  bottle,  the  tainted  breath,  the  flushed  or  the  pale  face,  the 
ill-gotten  lesson,  are  alarming  presages  of  a  habit  of  incurable  mtem- 
perance.  And  we  anticipate  the  speedy  and  mournful  issue  of  the  one 
with  as  little  danger  of  mistake  as  the  issue  of  the  other. 

Will,  then,  any  one  who  is  sensible  of  being  in  the  very  jeopardy  I 
describe  say,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  1  reply,  even  symptoms  of 
consumption  have  been  removed  by  an  early  resort  to  the  proper  means. 
And  it  is  with  this  very  hope  of  your  taking  a  timely  alarm,  and  adopt- 
ing the  proper  means  of  recovery,  that  1  ring  these  admonitions  in  your 
ears.  (1  would  depict  with  all  my  jiowers  the  terrible  danger  of  an  itnip- 
zV«/ //rt(6iV,- that  those  yet  free  may  keep  free;  may  come  not  nigh  the 
slippery  verge;  and  I  would  sound  a  still  louder  alarm  of  the  awful  issue 
of  ro«_A'''«''<^  habit,  to  those  who  are  just  beginning  to  feel  its  force.  I 
would  say  to  them:  feel  and  act  as  if  you  were  sliding  with  smooth  and 
pleasant  motion  down  a  mountain's  icy  breast,  that  overhung  a  yawning 
abyss.  You  are  beginning  to  decend,  but  the  declivity  is  yet  gradual, 
k  the  way  is  smooth,  and  your  motion  is  not  rapid  enough  to  alarm  you, 
but  only  sufficiently  so  to  animate  your  spirits,  and  to  excite  a  glorying 
of  mind  at  tlte  bravery  of  your  enterprise.  Your  older  and  more  experi- 
enced friends  stand  on  the  neighboring  heights,  and  watch  with  consid- 
erable anxiety  your  thoughtless  career.  They  cry  out  to  you,  and  tell 
you  of  the  precipice  ahead.  Be  advised— let  not  their  warning  voice  be 
neglected— throw  yourself  from  the  flying  vehicle  that  is  hurrying  you 
to  destruction;  grasp  at  every  twig  that  will  arrest  your  progress,  and 
strain  every  muscle  and  sinew  to  regain  the  summit  from  which  you  so 
heedlessly  set  out.  But  if  you  refuse;  if  you  laugh  at  the  idle  fear  of 
your  friends;  if  you  flatter  yourself  that  you  can  stop  long  before  you 
reach  the  precipice,  all  they  can  do  is  to  look  on  with  silent  agony  at  the 


13 

a  pproarhitjg  catastrophe.  They  fduld  tell  you  if  you  would  hear  them, 
that  the  derlivitv  is  every  motiient  becoming  steeper — that  the  velocity 
ot"  a  tailing  hodv  is  every  moment  accelerated  —  that  the  twigs  along  your 
path  which  once  miglit  have  arrestrd  you,  will  now  sn;ip  in  an  instant 
before  the  violence  of  your  motion,  and  onward,  and  onw  ard,  onward 
yo\i  must  go  until  vou  reach  the  verge,  then  take  the  aw  ful  leap  and  dis- 
appear forever!)  And  if  such  a  fat<;  as  I  have  described  were  to  befall 
vou,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  description,  it  would  be  less  mournful  than 
that  it  should  befall  you  in  the  allegorical  sense  intended.  For  then  you 
might  die  comparatively  innocent  and  respectable.  Your  friends  might 
not  see  vour  mangled  corpse,  nor  feel  disgraced  by  your  tieath.  But 
who  can  do  justice  to  the  feelings  of  those  parents  whose  son,  just  ripen' 
ing  into  manhood,  is  dying  before  their  eyes,  the  loaths'>me  victim  of  his 
guilty  excesses'.  How  shall  thev  escape  from  the  hideous  spectacle? 
Their  own  house,  the  only  place  they  have  to  lay. their  iiead,  the  birth 
place  of  their  children,  the  spot  where  are  clustered  all  their  comforts, 
the  peaceful  sanctuary  of  their  old  age,  becomes  the  hospital  of  their 
reprobate  son.  worn  out  with  intemtierance.  He  occupies  one  of  the 
chambers.  There,  while  they  lie  on  their  sleepless  beds  in  a  neighbor- 
ing room,  (I  have  witnessed  something  of  what  1  describe,)  they  hear 
his  calls  for  drink,  his  disgusting  belches,  his  horrid  execrations  against 
himself,  and  ever  and  anon  a  groan,  bespeaking  misery  too  big  for  words 
to  tell!  And  is  this  the  return  you  make,  degraded  young  men,  for  all 
the  loving  l^indness  of  your  parents?  Is  this  the  way  you  requite  the 
father  that  dandled  your  infancy  on  his  knee,  and  from  that  time  til!  the 
present,  has  been  toiling  to  provide  tor  your  happiness?  Is  this  your 
gratitude  to  the  mother  that  brought  you  into  the  world,  that  cherished 
you  at  her  breast,  that  tended  your  cradle  with  throbbing  temples  and  an 
aching  heart,  that  watched  you  all  along  your  playful  boyhood  with 
ceaseless  tenderness,  and  that  at  length  let  you  go  from  under  her  eye  to 
a  place  of  education,  only  from  the  confidence  i  a  confidence,  alas!  too 
much  misplaced)  that  the  prijiciples  and  the  gratitude  with  which  she 
had  imbued  you  would  forever  forbid  you  to  distress  her  by  a  vicions  life? 
Surely  this,  if  anything  in  the  world,  realizes  the  fable  of  the  frozen  vipe; 
that  as  soon  as  it  was  thawed  into  life  struck  its  envenomed  tangs  into 
the  bosom  that  warmed  it. 

But  I  would  not  stop  at  the  e.Khibition  of  the  temporal,  the  earthly  con- 
sequences of  tbip  worst  of  habits.  Could  I  do  it,  I  would  disturb  the 
slumbers  of  the  dead— I  would  evoke  from  their  tombs  the  myriads  that 
have  gone  down  thither  before  their  time,  the  victims  of  drunkenness.  I 
would  array  their  ghastly   spectres  in  a  long  line  before  you,  sire  by  the 


14 

side  of  son,  and  brother  at  the  right  hand  of  brbther.  I  could  call  upon 
them  to  tell  3'ou  of  the  fir-t  steps  that  led  to  their  unclointr;  how  thev  firs^ 
trifled  with  their  enemy— how  they,  in  thoughtless  boyhood,  mixed  with 
idle  company;  made  dnmkenness  a  subject  for  jestinj^;  took  a  glass 
among  their  jovial  friends,  merely  to  appear  social  and  manly  when  the 
liquor  was  not  pleasant  to  their  taste — how  the  appetite  grew  with  every 
indulgence  until  It  was  impossible  to  deny  it — until  they  themselves 
became  the  very  beastly  spectacles  of  intemperance  they  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  look  upon  with  loathing  and  contempt",  how  they  lingered  upon 
earth,  becoming  more  and  more  the  sorrow  and  shame  of  their  friends, 
and  at  last  sunk  unregretted  to  the  grave.  I  Avould  extort  from  them 
"the  secrets  of  their  prison  house."  I  would  make  them  appear  before 
you  surroundeil  v  ith  their  atmosphere  of  tempestuous  fire— open  before 
you  their  tortured  breasts  and  disclose  within  the  never-dying  worm 
gnawing  on  their  hearts -tell  you  with  tlieir  burning  tongues  the  horrors 
of  their  doom,  and  peal  in  vour  trembling  ears  the  declaration  of  the 
Almighty,  that  drunlvards  shall  lie  down  in  "the  lake  that^jurneth  with 
fire  and  brimstone  for  ever  and  ever."  I  should  hope  that  such  a  vision 
would  make  you  shun  for  life  the  sight,  smell  and  taste  of  inebriating 
liquors.  Oh!  in  the  contemplation  of  the  manifold  and  direful  miseries 
that  flow  from  this  bane  of  the  human  race,  one  might  be  tempted  to 
curse  the  memory  of  tlie  man  who  first  invented  the  art  of  distillation; 
of  extracting  death  from  (rod's  good  creatures  intended  to  be  the  nourish- 
ers  of  Hfe.  One  might  be  tempted  to  wish  that  every  distiller  of  spirits, 
and  every  vender  ©f  spirits,  and  every  diinker  of  spirits,  could  have  their 
nudnight  slumbers  haunted  by  the  apparitions  of  pale  widows  and  or- 
phans in  their  robes  of  mourning,  and  by  the  horrible  skeletons  of  their 
poisoned  husbands,  sons  and  brothers,  until  their  goaded  consciences 
should  drive  them,  with  unanimous  movement,  to  seize  every  vessel  con- 
taining the  liquid  poison  and  throw  it  into  a  funeral  pile,  to  make  one 
general  pious.burnt-off'ering  to  heaven,  while. the  art  of  manufacturing  the 
accursed  pest  should  forever  be  blotted  from  the  memory  of  man.  But 
why  wish  for  terrifying  visions  of  the  dead  to  benefit  the  living?  They 
will  never  be  granted.  Nor  are  we  sure  that  they  would  prove  the  means 
of  reformation.  For  what  says  Christ,  that  divine  anatomist  of  the  human 
heart  ?  "If  they  believe  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be 
persuaded  if  one  rose  from  the  dead.  '  Bowing  with  unquestioning  cre- 
dence to  the  divine  decision,  and  feeling  deeply  the  utter  impotency  of 
man  to  help  himself  when  sunk  in  evil  habits,  let  us  rather  urge  the 
poor  slave  of  sin  to  look  with  imploring  eye  to  the  Heavens,  and  let  us 
join   our   supplications  to  his  that  the  Almighty's  arm  may  be  stretched 


15 

down  to  "lift  liini  out  of  the  horrible  pit  ami  mit  of  the  miry  clay,"  and  to 
put  into  his  niouth  the  song  of  deliverance. 

Before  I  conclude  1  must  take  notice  of  a  doctrine  held  by  many,  some- 
times L-ven  urged  from  the  pulpit,  which  seems  to  lie  as  an  objection  to 
the  argument  we  have  been  endeavoring  to  enforce.  It  is  said  that  G»d 
can  as  easilv  convert  a  hardened  profligate  as  the  most  correct  moralist; 
nay,  that  the  former  will  much  more  [)robably  be  awakened  from  his 
security  than  the  latter,  because  the  very  enormity  of  his  sins  serves  as 
an  alarm-bell  to  shake  his  sleepy  conscience,  or  as  the  sting  of  scorpions 
rack  him  with  tierce  pains  of  intoIera!)le  reniurse;  and  hence  we  iiear  it 
sometimes  incautiously  asserted  that  the  man  of  sober,  resjjectable  char- 
acter is  in  more  danger  of  final  perdition  than  the  abandoned,  ct,>nlirmed 
libertine.  What  is  the  direct  tendency  of  such  a  belief?  Why,  to  estab- 
lish the  dangerous  paradox  that  the  more  a  man  sins  the  bt-iter  for  him- 
self—it will  quicken  his  conscience  and  arm  it  with  mighty  energy  to 
drive  him  from  his  evil  courses;  and  thus  his  chance  of  salvation  will  be 
increased  the  deeper  and  deeper  he  plunges  into  iniquity.  What  an  awful 
license  such  a  belief  must  give  to  vicious  propensities;  what  an  additional 
impulse  it  must  lend  to  the  already  imperious  rage  of  appetite  niay 
easily  be  conceived.  And  yet  nothing  is  more  certain,  if  we  are  to  believe 
our  te.xt  and  the  facts  «ccurring  to  our  daily  obser\  ation,  that  the  more 
a  man  sins  the  harder  he  grows,  thai  every  new  sin  stupefies  and  indur- 
ates the  conscience,  renders  a  man's  retreat  more  difficult  and  improba- 
ble, and  his  final  ruin  more  fatally  certain.  We  may  illustrate  the  two 
cases  thus: — heaping  sin  after  sin  upon  the  conscience  may  be  compared 
to  heaping  green  wood  upon  a  few  coals.  The  more  you  throw  on,  the 
more  you  crush  the  coals,  and  the  greater  danger  of  putting  out  the  tire 
altogether.  If,  however,- the  feeble  heat  should  not  e.xpire  under  this 
incumbent  weight,  but  should,  by  great  good  fortune,  once  ignite  the 
wood  contiguous  to  it.  then  all  the  oppressive  heap  serves  as  so  much  ali- 
ment to  feed  the  flame  and  to  increase  the  greatness  and  heat  of  the  fire. 
So  a  proHgate's  conscience  has  the  almost  certain  prospect  of  being 
seared  in  final  obduracy.  But  if  bv  one  of  those  astonishing  acts  of  God's 
special  mercy,  which  it  pleases  Him  sometimes  to  work  for  the  display 
of  His  power  and  goodness,  that  proHigate's  conscience  is  awakened,  it 
will  be  apt  to  operate  more  powerfully  upon  him — apt  to  produce  more 
awful  agonies  of  fear,  more  convulsive  struggles  to  effect  an  escape, 
deeper  humiliation  and,  if  he  obtains  pardon,  more  ecstatic  gratiude  that 
such  an  enormous  transgressor  has  been  spared  and  purified  and  blessed. 
He  has  had  much  forgiven,  he  will  therefore  love  much.  But  let  every 
man  beware  how  he  tries  the  dreadful  experiment  of  sinning  in  order  to 
furnish  himself  with  materials  for  repentance.  Enough  of  these,  the  most 
blameless  will  find,  who  study  the  holy  law  of  God  and  compare  it  with 
the  evil  that  is  in  their  hearts.  That  delicacy  of  conscience  which  is  the 
fruit  and  the  reward  of  a  moral  life  will,  by  the  aid  of  God's  spirit,  ena- 
ble you  to  have  a  quicker  and  livelier  feeling  of  what  is  evil,  and  to  find 
as  copious  a  source  of  godly  sorrow  and  humiliation  in  the  secret  sins  of 
your  heart  as  the  gross  transgressor  finds  in  the  recollection  of  his  scar- 
let and  crimson  sins.  Never  have  I  heard  from  the  lips,  never  have  I 
read  in  the  secret  diary  of  any  penitent  prodigal,  such  deep,  heart-touch- 
ing  confessions  of  inward   depravity  and  self-loathing  as  appears  in  the 


16 

journal  of  Edwards,  and  Brainerd,  and  Martyn,  and  Payson,  men  who 
were  preserved  comparatively  pure  and  free  of  vicious  habits  from  their 
tender  years,  'f  lie  prorligate  ffiav  escape,  but  he  will  have  reason  to 
remember  all  his  lifetime  that  he  has  escaped  as  by  hre.  Like  one  of 
Milton's  infernal  potentates,  he  bears  on  his  marred  visage  the  signals 
of  his  unrighteous  battle  with  Heaven. 

His  face 

Deep  scars  of  thunder  ha\e  intrenced. 

He  will  have  cause  to  bemoan,  while  he  lives,  his  career  of  proHigacy. 
He  will  be  "made  to  possess  the  iniquities  of  his  youth"*  in  bodily  dis- 
eases, a  shattered  c()nstitution,  shame  for  past  dishonor,  past  injuries  to 
others — injuries  alas!  irreparal)lc;  injuries  to  those  wiio  are  dead,  and 
therefore  out  of  the  reach  uf  his  tardy  retribution — injuries  to  those  who 
are  li\  ing,  but  irremediably  blasted  in  fortune  and  reputation,  or  uncon- 
querably fortified  in  vice  and  inhdelity.  He  will  find  himself  reaping  the 
bitter  fruiis  of  <-arly  crimes,  perhaps  in  the  rebellion  or  lewd  lives  of  his 
children,  vitiated  tiy  his  bad  e.xample  and  his  cruel  neglect — in  a  solid 
and  polluted  imagination,  and  the  jiestilent  and  contaminating  recollec- 
tion of  past  alH>minations.  These  may  make  him  go  mourning  all  his  days. 
To  cleanse  this  heart,  this  Augean  stable  where  foul  lusts  ha\  e  held  their 
abode  for  manv  years,  will  furnish  him  with  Herculean  labor  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  Oh,  what  untimely,  unwelcome  intrusions  will  the  visions 
of  tornier  riot  make  upuu  his  soul,  perhaps  in  his  most  hallowed  mo- 
ments, perhaps  in  the  very  attitude  of  devotion!  How  much  work  will 
he  have  to  do  in  keejMng  out  the  vile  thoughts?  How  will  they,  with  im- 
pudent freedom,  rush  unl)ulden  into  the  breast  that  once  harbored,  but 
would  now  tain  exclude  them,  and  with  their  liar|)y  touch  detile  the 
sanctuary  of  the  soul,  and  the  very  oftering  that  is  there  burning  on  the 
altar  of  tiod! 

Diripiuntque  dapes,  contactuque  omnia  fa'dant 
Tin  m  undo. 

Oh,  then  will  the  reclaimed  profligate  bemoan  himself  that  he  ever  laid 
up  within  him  such  materials  for  shame  and  sorrow,  and  will  en\y  those 
whose  youth,  unstained  by  vice,  have  never  entailed  upon  themselves 
such  an  inheritance  of  guilty  recollections,  ^'ou  may  say  that  these 
things  serve  to  humble  him.  Yes  they  do,  but  they  often  keep  him 
mourning  and  prostrate,  ashamed  to  lift  up  his  head  or  exert  his  hasds 
when  he  ought  to  be  up  and  doing,  rejoicing  and  praising,  and  acting  for 
his  God. 

Kut  supposing  the  hardened  sinners's  conscience  to  awake,  is  he  sure 
that  it  will  awake  to  repentance?  Is  he  sure  that  it  will  not  awake  to 
horror  and  desperation?  Is  he  sure  that  it  will  not,  like  Cain's,  drive  him 
out  from  the  presence  of  (jod?  That  he  will  not  quickly  draw  down 
again  over  his  eyes,  the  veil  which  had  been  fur  a  moment  drawn  up,  but 
disclosed. prospects  too  horrible  for  contemplatu)u?  Is  he  sure  that  an 
insulted,  aggrieved  and  outraged  conscience,  will  not,  like  the  ill-boding 
owl,  scream  in  his  ears  the  slirill  note  of  despair,  of  sin  beyond  the  reach 
of  God's  mercy,  sin  inexpiable  even  by  the  blood  of  Christ,  until  it  urges 
him,  like''Judas,  over  the  precipice  of  self-murder. 

*Job  xiii  26. 


